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When I saw this dog I knew I had to get a picture of him, because I could instantly relate to him. I saw a sadness in him bought on by nothing more than the passage of time. A love of the familiar, and a hate for stagnation. I saw within this dog a dreamer, a loyal friend, and companion. Finally I saw in this dog a broken spirit, waiting for a promise that may never be fufilled. It was so cold on the day I took this picture, and this ordinary brown dog just sat on the porch facing the same direction silently waiting. The waiting is what we have most in common.

While you wait you realize that the world around you is closing in. With each passing day the space you are allowed to occupy while you wait becomes smaller, and smaller, until there is no place for you. Just like this little bit of nature, a creek sandwiched between a highway and a railroad station. There is no room for actual nature in a bustling metropolis, the same as there is no room for the artist in a capitalist - consumerist society. The artist is labeled starving, because the system wasn't designed to cater to or for said artist. You are forced to exist an anomaly, find a place to remain natural among all that is artificial.

Finally we have the perfect world. The photo of a reflection of what true joy is. So many layers it is hard to tell if what we see ever actually existed. You see the smiling faces of customer and employee, one willing to part with hard earned money, which by the way is quickly becoming scarce and the other greedily accepting the money and adding to a wealth they will never see .01% off. I want to work at Pop Tart World and be paid my worth. A dream for a fool and a dog.

Video making is tough. I've learned that hate is abundant, and rewards are few, and far in between. How can you make your heart beat to the tune of another drum? The real question is why would I want it to?

Ambition, Action, Perseverance, my mantra as I sit on this porch, an average brown dog, waiting.

I am starting to realize that I should always remember that I am blogger first. I am adding so many titles beneath my name, and I feel like I may lose track of what's important.

I am going to tap myself on the back for that bit of alliteration that actually contains a few nuggets of wisdom. In my quest to create a media machine, I have learned many lessons along the way. I've learned that if you want to generate income no matter what you are doing on the internet, or off, you require four basic elements to create a decent foundation talent, intelligence, friends, and luck.

Talent wise, I think I already stressed the importance of creating the best content you can, but I am not sure I ever explained that good content is not only extremely entertaining, the production value also should be extremely high. When you put effort into making a more polished product it adds curb appeal to your content. Imagine if you will a piece of shit on video, the shit is all pixelated and grainy and it looks like a brown blob, now if the shit was in HD and the viewer could see the bits of food in the shit, and imagine textures and pick up the mild differences in color on different parts of said shit the experience of viewing the shit would have shifted. So we have two shit videos of the same piece of shit but one of them is more effective in grossing out the audience because of the higher production value.

The lesson here is if you are going to make shit make that shit sparkle like gold!

Moving on to intelligence, you have to think of yourself as a business and once you achieve that task you have to separate the self from the business. Now you (the business) have to start planning for things that you may have never even considered in the past (like lawsuits, copyright claims, and angry women who you ignore). You should also be thinking of new ways to reach more people with your product (which for me would be myself). I discovered that setting aside at least 30 dollars every month for an advertising budget goes a long way. After you exhausted all your friends, and family, and you realize that your content is stuck within a circle of people which it doesn't seem to be able to escape from you have to discover a way to get new hits, and creating a ad through the many popular social networks may be the way to go. Every impression is a new eye that knows your name and every click is a new person interested in what you have to say and until your content is self sustaining why not shell out a few budget dollars to expanding your business through marketing.

The lesson here is that you have to be the business, and the cardinal rule of business is it takes money to make money, so invest in yourself and try a bit of advertising.

Saying Friends as a foundation to success is just my way of dumbing down networking. Put simply it's going to be difficult to do whatever you are doing alone, and at some point a third party will have to get involved if you want to reach your maximum potential. Sometimes we create an awesome piece of work and it goes nowhere, it lingers stagnant because you don't have the kind of reach needed to push it to the next level. Guess what, someone else has that ability and you may just need to be working something out with that person. Sometimes it's not about what you know, but who you know (cliche but very true). So if you have a way in take it, if you know someone who is a master at promotion, and you need promotion reach out. Second, if someone reaches out to you don't turn a deaf ear, because the right collaboration may not appear to be super sweet at first, but the hidden benefits may be boundless.

Lesson here is people are an asset, use them. You are an asset, people will use you. Thus the world turns.

Last a bit of luck never hurt anyone. Sometimes being in the right place at the right time is all it takes to literally make your career. It never hurts to be one of the first people to do something. Example the veterans on YouTube have had time to slowly build a die hard following which I am sure is a huge factor for their success today. It seems like an overnight success to us who haven't seen the years of work, but clearly see them reaping rewards. Timing is crucial even when you are not aware that it is.

I had one of those rare moments today when I just fired up my editing program with no particular project in mind and just messed around. All I could think of was a lake at night, and anyone who has seen any of my video knows I have a thing for lights. I just have this need to add glows and rays to things. I did this all out of a clip of a few particles of dust, I am calling it compositing baby steps because I am really just getting my feet wet as it comes to advanced motion graphics and advanced compositing. Adding explosions and fires is easy but creating a clean and polished video is hard. So I guess I'm practicing.

I received a rare email from Google alerting me that I was part of a Class Action settlement revolving around some Google Buzz controversy. Now I am the first to admit, I love all things Google and there is a 80 percent chance that I would never sue Google for anything, the other 20 percent accounting for negligence on Google's part that ends up getting me hurt, and Human/American greed. The issue being addressed was Google Buzz which some claimed violated their privacy rights, because they were automatically enrolled and personal information such as contacts and what have you were shared with others.

Sadly I must admit that this is true. One day I woke up and I was also apart of Google Buzz, I was following random people and it was all very much not of my doing. I can also proudly admit that I don't feel like Google gave away any information that anyone couldn't find by simply Googling me. After much deliberation I decided that I will do nothing and accept the terms of the settlement. Google has distributed 8.5 million into a fund for this suit in particular but not one red cent of that money will reach it's way to me. It's going to non profits and blah blah blah. Oh did I mention that every person in the U.S. with a Google account is part of the suit?

Just to be clear, this is not a settlement in which people who use Gmail can file to receive compensation. Everyone in the U.S. who uses Gmail is included in the settlement, unless you personally decide to opt out before December 6, 2010. The Court will consider final approval of the agreement on January 31, 2011. This email is a summary of the settlement, and more detailed information and instructions approved by the court, including instructions about how to opt out, object, or comment, are available at http://www.BuzzClassAction.com.

Excerpt from my first class action suit *Tender Moments*

In other Reborn related news,

Election day is coming to a close so my three part epic political video trilogy is over *Sad face* It was fun while it lasted, hopefully the next trilogy I make will have the honor of gracing the silver screen.

FYI, It felt good to do such a weird and yet totally honest post, granted that the Teddy Bear is both weird and funny I like the way the picture came out.